Equal opportunity for women, worldwide.
The barrier is rarely ability
Fees that cannot be paid. A business that cannot be started without capital. A voice never invited into the room. The obstacles women and girls meet have little to do with what they are capable of.
So the program is taught in a woman’s own language and cultural context, by facilitators from her own community. Nothing is imported and nothing is imposed — and a scholarship or a loan sits behind it wherever one is what stands in the way.
Dr. Sara Safari
Author, speaker, professor and mountain climber — the first Iranian to complete the Seven Summits.
She was on Everest during the 2015 earthquake and the avalanche that followed, an experience documented in the Netflix film Aftershock, and wrote Above the Mountain’s Shadow about the climb and the girls it was for.
There is no limit to human potential — there are only limits in human belief.
Board of Directors
Pari Sakhai
Psychology professor, MA Counseling. With Empower Nepali Girls since 2009.
She moved to Southern California at thirteen, and holds degrees in business administration, finance and counseling psychology. She teaches undergraduate psychology and serves as a director and chair of humanities, and has worked with Empower Nepali Girls since 2009.
Dylan Grimes
Entertainment and sports attorney. Super Lawyers honoree.
More than fifteen years of legal practice, in entertainment and sports law. He has been named to the Super Lawyers list in multiple years.
Alyssa Theis
Secretary of the board. Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.
She holds a master’s degree in counseling and works as a licensed marriage and family therapist and clinical director in San Diego, where she specializes in perinatal mental health. She volunteered in Nepal in 2015.
Ryan Thomas Neace
Licensed clinical counselor. CEO of Change, Inc.
He holds a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy alongside a range of mental health credentials, and is founder and chief executive of Change, Inc., a psychotherapy practice in St. Louis, Missouri.
Ginhee Rancourt
Entrepreneur, focused on financial self-sufficiency for girls in developing nations.
She founded Young Art while becoming guardian to her younger siblings. Her work is directed at financial self-sufficiency through meaningful employment for girls and women in developing countries.
